Silver and Gold
by Amberlin
Summary: One-shot fic about Jack, Bill and Bill's wife. NOT SLASH! Just a little idea I came up with.


The scream in the night is hollow; the source uncertain. The boy is facing his father, or someone wearing his father's face; perverted and distorted with fear.  
  
The inescapable scream levels out into a woman's tenor and the boy realizes with a numb horror that it's his mother. He can't ask what's happening or why the house if filled with footsteps and choked in smoke.  
  
Or maybe its death, but who's?  
  
He's being pushed away; disobliging bare feet slipping on the wood.  
  
His father's voice is in his ear, "Run son, run before they see you."  
  
Something between a choke and sob is heard, dangerously close to the young man; perhaps even issuing from him. The boy has no time to decide.  
  
Footsteps are closer; doors are slamming and darkness taking over as candles are blown out.  
  
His father is crawling now, hindered by serrated knife lodged in his thigh; choking back his own tears as he shoves his son away.  
  
Away from death, away from life.  
  
The promise to meet is all that can bring the boy to consent; he's neurotically anxious about the knife, wanting to pull it out before he deserts his father for another time.  
  
His father clutches at his wrists until they throb; telling him to run. The locked door groans on its hinges and the boy lets go, feeling hollow and traitorous as he stumbles out the back of the house; catching a faint glimpse of his mother cowering under a table.  
  
Running through the street now he sees no one; he can only hear moaning and a strong hum that he can only guess is coming from his own heart.  
  
The moon is red; derisive, callously telling him the things to come. In the distance he can hear his mother howl shrilly, to her husband, herself, or maybe even to God, "what have you done?"  
  
It echoes in his ears.  
  
The crying fades but it's still fresh in his mind. The world is indistinct around him, the faces vague as they approach him. Suddenly, instead of concerned faces, he sees feet. The concrete is hard under his cheek but there's no vigor left in him to care.  
  
He wonders if his father will be mad that he's not where they're suppose to meet. He prays he'll still be able to find him.  
  
A laugh is heard after he utters the wish; issuing from the back of his own disparaging mind.  
  
/////////  
  
"Wake up, sweetie."  
  
There's an angel talking to him. He's sure of it; he's in heaven.  
  
Is this where his father wished to meet?  
  
Did the voice belong to his mother? Once unrefined and gruff now transformed in the holy abode?  
  
He wills his eyes open; his mother's face is staring down at him. His mother's face but prettier, without the customary unease that usually etched it.  
  
It perturbs him for some inexplicable reason. He doesn't want his mother like this; as an angel without worry.  
  
He wants his own, shortcomings and all.  
  
Focusing now, though, he sees that it is not his mother's face. The eyes are much too young; the features thinner. The worry is the only likeness to his mother and he shrinks away from the face, although he has a fervent yearning to stroke it, to see if the feel of sincerity is smooth under his fingers.  
  
The young woman leans forward, her dark hair falling onto his cheek; it slows his heart and he relaxes. The eyes crinkle into smile, the worry still there but relieved.  
  
"What's you name, hon?"  
  
He opens his mouth but can't find his tongue for awhile. The beauty above him shows no impatience.  
  
Finally, "Jack."  
  
He loses her as his eyes drift closed, wondering if he'd dreamed his whole life up to this point.  
  
He feels unconscious but can still hear her words as she addresses someone else. Jack feels a pang in his heart; she was his angel, his savior and she shouldn't be speaking so benevolently to another.  
  
"Bill, how old do you think he is?"  
  
A masculine but calming voice wafts from a corner close by, "About 12 I'd say. What do you think happened to his parents?"  
  
The angel speaks again, "Probably mixed up in that business that happened last night." The woman's sweet voice shakes, and the sleeping boy wants to console her, "I heard the people killed were involved with pirates or something."  
  
The third party doesn't respond or Jack's mind finally succumbed fully to sleep; silence fills the air.  
  
///////////////  
  
EIGHT YEARS LATER.  
  
It only been a few months since Jack had been in this house. It was his home in a way; this and the ship.  
  
The two kind souls had taken him in; the angel watching over him, while the man protected and educated. They were a youthful couple, twenty at Jack's arrival but mature for their years. The man, Bill was a merchant sailor.  
  
Or so his wife thought.  
  
Jack had been taught his guardian's trade, which was far less reputable than the man would have his lover know.  
  
His wife. Mary. With her auburn hair and black eyes. He never ceased to think of her as his angel, perhaps growing fonder of her than was proper considering he was her husband's closest companion.  
  
She thought of him as the boy she raised, the boy that, before her own eyes, turned from hesitant and restrained to blithe, capricious.  
  
Eccentric; a polite term she preferred.  
  
She never looked crossly at him though, even when his sanity escaped him. She was the only one who never flinched at his movements, or cast an apprehensive glance at the atypical strut he acquired from bouncing back and forth between land and sea.  
  
She only stiffened when he moved too close or reminded her offhandedly that he wasn't a boy anymore.  
  
He stood in the dining room now, feeling oddly ill at ease in his own home.  
  
The older man was at his elbow.  
  
"Will she look very different?"  
  
Bill looks amused at the inquiry.  
  
"Aye, Jack. She's probably grown a good amount. We've been gone for five months. The little stranger is most likely even moving around by now."  
  
Jack reels slightly. Bill takes it for amazement but it's out of delight. The remark startles him and he likes the disturbance. The land is so mundane to him now. Even as he walks, he's ill-equipped for the stability of the ground. It doesn't move to meet him, forcing him to remember how far up he should lift his foot and throwing him off balance as he consistently misjudges.  
  
Yes, the land frightens him in its predictability; he's persistently thrown off by the absence of threat, the threat of the world swallowing you if it tips too much.  
  
Because that only happens at sea.  
  
But now, he does feel as if the world were tipping as a figure glides into the room and into her husband's arms.  
  
Jack looks away but only for a second. He's drawn to the change in her, the glow that surrounds her and the unmistakable bulge at her midsection.  
  
A living testament to the couple's devotion.  
  
She doesn't need to be reminded of Jack's presence. He's not someone you could fail to notice. She turns to look him in the eye.  
  
She's constantly taken aback by his eyes; the dark pools that reflect light no matter where he stands; they aren't easy to get used to even after living with them for eight years.  
  
She scrutinizes him with an unattached enthrallment. Then she turns her concentration back to her husband, a smile of a different kind coming over her untouched features.  
  
A look a love.  
  
Bill puts a hand on her stomach, restless already to touch his child.  
  
"How long are you staying this time, Bill?"  
  
Her voice is delicate. Jack always feels the touch of her velvety hair on his cheek when she speaks, though he'd never let her know.  
  
"Until it's time, Mary."  
  
She addresses the younger man, "It's good to see you, lad."  
  
Bill chuckles softly, "How many times do I have to tell you dear, he's not a lad anymore. Hasn't been for quite awhile."  
  
She moves forward to embrace Jack, her manner motherly. She has to see him as a child; the view was a preventative measure. It was a barrier to the dangerous that she refused to let anyone break down.  
  
Even herself.  
  
Especially when she began to notice, long ago, the way he looked at her.  
  
Much like the way he was looking at her now. A glimmer in his eyes that was hardly covered by the lackadaisical smile he used as a facade.  
  
He'd adopted that particularl disguise when he realized that his eyes screamed his emotions and the front fooled everyone but her.  
  
The one he wanted to fool the most.  
  
Bill speaks again and Jack's eyes leave hers; they change now, almost indiscernibly.  
  
The spark, usually directed at the lady, is gone but the feeling is still there. A feeling of love that couldn't be expunged no matter how much envy crept into his soul at what the man possessed that he wanted for his own.  
  
Jack seems awkward around her stomach; his hand drifts ever so often towards it and then falls limp.  
  
He smiles charmingly at her, but there's uncertainty in his eyes.  
  
"Does it move?"  
  
He sways as he talks, his face coming closer to hers. She doesn't seem to notice, accustomed to his ways.  
  
She reaches for his hand, trying to overlook the lust in his eyes at the feel of her skin.  
  
Though the expression is there, she feels no threat. She knows the love he has for his saviors, both of them, overwhelms all else. And she'd seen the way he looked at her husband.  
  
His fondness for her was intense, but his love for Bill was incomprehensible.  
  
A timid hand rests on her tummy; he presses lightly, needing to touch her.  
  
He jerks back, thrown off balance by the sudden movement under his hand.  
  
He replaces his palm, a heat spreading through his entire body. He feels closer to her, and although he feels guilty for the thoughts, he revels in the connection.  
  
She smiles amiably, either oblivious to the intimacy of the moment or ignoring it.  
  
"I think it likes you, Jack."  
  
Bill laughs softly, blissfully, as Jack drops his hand back to his side.  
  
"Jack'll make a wonderful godfather."  
  
Mary continues to hold his gaze, "When he has children of his own, I'm sure he'll make a wonderful father too."  
  
Depression clutches at his heart.  
  
*Children of his own.*  
  
She's no longer his angel at that moment. She was a mother..of someone else's child.  
  
She belongs solely to someone else.  
  
He never set foot in the house again. 


End file.
